
7hl 



7> 



E 650 
.T46 
Copy 1 



Patriotism is Doing 
Your Duty 



^^s^ 



Memorial Address 

BY 

WILLIAM HOLCOMBE THOMAS 



Montgomery, Ala. 
April 26, 1911. 



\ 







PARAGON PRESS 



PATRIOTISM IS DOING YOUR DUTY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 

My poor words cannot fittingly express the debt of 
gratitude that the South will ever owe to earnest bands 
of her women. Their memorial associations have kept 
burning the fires of patriotism on every altar from Vir- 
ginia to Texas. And through their thoughtful kindness, 
token of remembrance are yearly placed on every soldiers 
grave. 

They have wisely organized the junior memorial associ- 
ation to take up the work of their mothers, that in every 
right way true history may be written. They have asked 
justice and toleration and as answer came the return 
of the captured flags. 

I believe that is was from their untiring efforts that 
President Roosevelt, ordered the name of Jefferson Davis 
restored to its place on Cabin John's Bridge. 

Fighting bravely in war, by her encouragement and 
example, woman now reigns gloriously in peace by the 
nobility of her character. As the duties of war were in- 
spired by her, so the duties of peace are in mother-hands. 
And no people can rise higher than the character of its 
womanhood. 

PASSING OF THE HEROES. 

To the Sons of Confederate Veterans, may we say, that 
some time ago a correspondent from Opelika gave the 
names of Confederate soldiers buried in that cemetery. I 
am glad the names of our departed heroes, from time to 
time, are given. It is in the nature of argument to the 
coming generation on behalf of the principles for which 
they fought, and are silent reminders of responsibilities 
that lie about us. They made history; only a few of 
them thought to write it. Living in the day of the pass- 



(4) 

ing of the heroes of that great struggle, the duty is on us 
to see the truth and write its history. 

THE TRAGEDY OF HISTORY. 

We stand in the lengthening shadow of a great cause. 
Those who fought under Jackson or Lee, who fought un- 
der Grant or McClellan were alike inspired by a passion 
for liberty akin to the ideal. The world's seers have ever 
felt this ruling passion. It is found from Herodotus, de- 
claring, "for great wrongs great chastisement come from 
the gods," to Rostand, exclaiming: ''There is no great 
love outside the shadow of a great dream." The tragedy 
is, that for a time, men are often driven to error to find 
liberty, justice and moderation. He who follows its shad- 
owy trail, from duty to duty, in being true to the de- 
mands of patriotism, will find its highest reward in his 
own soul. He who lays down life in its great quest, is a 
hero whom the world will do honor. 

WHY THE SOUTH WITHDREW FROM THE UNION. 

What, then of the cause for which we fought? The 
South withdrew from the Union not with a spirit of re- 
bellion, but because it was thought that sectional legisla- 
tion, by those having no similar interest with the people 
of the South, was fast driving wealth from her genial 
clime, and fruitful soil, to the regions north of the Po- 
tomac. That it was that that drove us from the house of 
our fathers, and going, I trust, we carried the love of law 
and order, justice and moderation. 

DIFFERENT VIEWS. 

Certain it is, there were different views from differ- 
ent standpoints. Let Nathaniel Ha\\4horne speak of the 
situation through a letter to Mr. Bennoch of England. 
"We also have gone to war," he wrote, "and we seem to 



(5) 

have little, or at least a very misty idea of what we are 
fighting for. It depends upon the speaker; and then 
again depends upon the section of the country in which 
his sympathies are enlisted. The Southern man will say 
"We fight for State's rights, liberty and independence." 
The middle Western man will vow that he fights for the 
Union, while our Northern and Eastern man will swear 
that from the beginning his only idea was liberty to the 
blacks and the annihilation of slavery." Mr. Bennoch 
replies: "I cannot feel savage with these Southerners 
I and millions more, being unable to find out from any 
speech or statement what the principle involved really is. 
The President argues in favor of secession and permits 
it, if he does not encourage it. Altogether your states- 
men, at first did not believe in war, but by considerable 
ingenuity excited the South to strike (see Lincoln's mes- 
sage), and then "cry havoc and let slip." About the 
same time Mr. Bright wrote Hawthorne, that "Here in 
England, among those who have known and loved Ameri- 
ca best, there is but one feeling, — of great sadness and 
regret. We do not know whose is the fault, — whose the 
crime, — but we feel that we cannot endure this dreadful 
Civil war. My reason and consciousness are clear as to 
the wrong and uselessness of this most dreadful strug- 
gle." 

THE CAUSE WAS NOT LOST. 

State's rights is yet a vital question in every Section of 
the American Nation. Its influence is felt in both 
branches of Congress, And out of it all, we have reached 
a more harmonious working basis, that has regards for 
the rights of the State, in matters local to the State, and 
a fuller appreciation of the duty of the nation to all of its 
people. Both Sections are learning that general inter- 
ests must finally prevail over special interests. Both 
Sections are learning that individual rights are higher 



(6) 

than property rights. Let us, then, never refer to the 
"cau'se" as "lost" when we remember that the Confeder- 
ate soldier in the discharge of his dutj^ helped to write 
into law that which neither Washington, Jefferson, Jay 
or Hamilton, or any other patriot could put into a con- 
stitution ; when we remember that he showed what Clay, 
Calhoun and Webster, what Hill, Yancey and Toombs, 
what orators. North and South had not impressed on the 
hearts of the people; when we remember that he de- 
monstrated what Marshall, Taney and Chase or any other 
jurist could not show — we see his cause was a lasting ser- 
vice to posterity. 

The courageous insistence on the side of the North and 
on the side of the South, gave demonstration that the Un- 
ion could withstand dissension from within, and would 
expel external aggression. Thus was the world taught the 
strength of the American system. No event since the na- 
tions birth so proved its capacity for self government. 
And both sections shared equally in its glory. 

HONOR THE HEROIC DEAD. 

But, my countrymen, you have come not for political 
discussion but to honor a heroic dead. Where the "Surg- 
ing billows dash the white sand at Beauvoir," there lived 
an aged and care-worn man to whom the impartial his- 
torian will accord a place with the great and wise of 
earth. For many years he trod alone the "paths of our 
defeat," his motives misunderstood by those, who, for 
the time could not lend an understanding ear. Yet his 
spotless character was vindicated in the purity of his long 
life ; in his patience, forbearance and charity ; in the grace 
and native dignity with which he "bowed his neck to re- 
ceive and wear the yoke of disfranchisement." And 
when, a few years before his death, this aged chieftain 
made a pilgrimage through the South, all along the route 
at every wayside and station came flocking crowds to do 



(7) 

him the honor of their presence. The young, the old, the 
rich and poor, the pauper and peasant were there ; silvered 
ag-e and blooming yuth, budding manhood and woman- 
hood, all striving to get one fleeting glance, or catch a 
single word falling from the lips of the grand old man. 
And he will ever transmit with tender and loving care to 
posterity the name of Jefferson Davis as a patrimony to 
preserve. 

GEN. ROBERT E. LEE. 

Many pen-portraits may be drawn that would be ap- 
preciated by a Southern heart. I could speak of a life, 
in the language of Montesque, as a "hymn in praise of 
humanity." I could point to his superior military ge- 
nius, to the last sad scene at Appomattox, where he bore 
himself with a fearless mien, and a dignity becoming 
the surrender of the hopes of his people. I could point 
to the sweet and hearty sympathy as he bade his army 
"an affectionate farewell" ; at his faithful devotion to the 
duties of peace, and in this you would see a life that be- 
longs not alone to the South, for the life of Robert E. 
Lee belongs to America, in the same sense that Nelson 
and Wellington are of England. 

CONFEDERATE SOLDIER OF HISTORY. 

The heroic figure of the Confederate soldier, as pre- 
sented to the world by the dispassionate historian, cannot 
but gain the admiration of his enemies. There may be 
those who differed from him politically, those who from 
self interest, would deny him the laurel he hath so dearly 
won, because, thinking for himself he opposed encroach- 
ment upon the Constitutional guarantee of Local Self 
Government. "Yet even those doubting his cause can 
never doubt him." Too well do they remember how he 
swept before him their mighty army from off the plains 



(8) 

of Manassas and spread consternation throughout the 
capital. Too well do they remember with what results 
they met him at Winchester, Cross Keys and Port Re- 
public; and how Stonewall Jackson fell upon and took 
11,300 prisoners at Harper's Ferry, crossed the Potomac 
into Maryland. Nor will they soon forget the few who 
drove back the many of the foe at Fredericksburg and at 
Sharpsburg, who won glorious victories at Kernstown 
and Monocacy, "grappled with death in the Wilderness," 
and defeated "the finest army on the planet" at Chancel- 
lorsville. Nor do they forget the many significant death- 
pauses when the muster roll was called after their "care- 
less assaults at Spottsylvania," or success in Pennsylva- 
nia, at Cold Harbor or New Market, along the rippling 
Rapidan, or on Mayre's Stony Heights, at Pittsburgh, or 
after the awful slaughter at Petersburg, when many a 
soldier in Blue answered not, his going to pitch his tent 
"on Fame's eternal camping ground," being a sad but 
immortal monument of glory to the valor of the South- 
ern soldier. 

Will not the fair young wife, now grown gray with 
the sorrows of widowhood and the cares of orphanage, 
make a yearly pilgrimage to her shrine, ladened 
with trophies of springtime, to place tokens of remem- 
brance on the soldier's grave? Shall we ever cease read- 
ing with effect the inscriptions on the "ten thousand lit- 
tle doors of eternity, opening on every hillside and dale, 
from the mighty Mississippi" to the valley of the Shen- 
andoah, or shut our ears to the historic lessons taught 
by those whose tongues are now stringless instruments, 

"And who will speak to the ages with 
A golden drift thro' all the song." 

UNKNOWN GRAVES. 

Fear of the loss of personal identity, has ever op- 



(9) 

pressed mankind. In all parts of our Southland are the 
appealing headstones of the "unknown." Who, for the 
love of home and principle as they saw it, lost identity, 
in the ranks of a private soldier, and by faithful 
adherence to duty as such, taught the world a lesson in 
fidelity and courage, it can never forget. May God bless 
the humble private! God will pity him who died "Un- 
known." 

DESTINY DECREES DEFEAT. 

Destiny seemed to have ordained otherwise than that 
the sons of the Confederacy be crowned with success. 
And if their soul-stirring shouts of victory were echoed 
along the slopes of the Cumberland mountains, or up the 
sides of the joyous Kennesaw, yet the ominous dirge of 
slowly retreating armies was heard after the conflict at 
Shiloh, at Nashville and Bowling Green, Ky. 

Defeat was the test-tube in which the nobility of char- 
acter was tried. And now the brother from the North, 
understanding the motives that instigated the South to 
action, is glad to grasp her sons by the hand "as worthy 
the name of an American." 

Dr. Albert Shaw, a noble son of the New North, re- 
cently wrote: "The surviving soldiers on both sides of 
the great civil conflict of forty years ago, have long since 
learned respect and admiration for their brave oppon- 
ents; and the whole country will in future times, even 
more deeply cherish the records and traditions of Amer- 
ican heroism as evidenced in that great period irrespec- 
tive of the color of the uniform." 

RETURN OF CAPTURED FLAGS. 

Some years ago a dispatch to the Chicago Tribune from 
New Orleans says: "An official proclamation has been 
issued by Gen. Stephen D. Lee, commander in chief of 



(10) 

the United Confederate Veterans, paying unstinted praise 
and tribute to Congress for passing the battle flag return 
measure, and to President Roosevelt for his prompt sig- 
nature." 

General Lee said: "This action is fresh evidence that 
there are now in our grand country no sectional lines — 
no South, no North, East or West, — but that we are all 
Americans, devoted to one common country." 

A UNITED NATION. 

The graphic pen of an Advertiser reporter at the time 
gave notice of the return of Alabama flags as follows: 

"There was a bit of pathos in the inadvertent man- 
ner in which the express box containing the sacred flags 
found its way to the capitol. Taken from the wagon by 
one of the porters, the precious consignment was carried 
to the door of the Governor's office where it remained 
for an hour or two. Not a soul was aware of the con- 
tents until the box was moved into the ante-room of the 
Executive office, where it was opened." 

Is not this but a pathetic telling of how the commer- 
cial spirit in its best sense came among us, and it was 
long at our door before we appreciated how much it 
meant to our beautiful Southland. It is but symbolic of 
the coming of the spirit of unity, fraternity and confi- 
dence to the door of the North and to the door of the 
South — ^the making of a great people — Americans. Un- 
heralded, possessing the heart of the North and South, 
and we are a world power. True, the pratings of little 
men will yet be long heard; true, those who would be- 
little politics will seek to scatter the poison of prejudice 
in the hearts of man; true, the moral assassin will still 
make his cowardly attacks with falsehood and slander 
on those who think and speak honestly; yet, the God of 
Nations will keep and preserve this Nation, so long as 
the Nation does its full duty to all men. 



(11) 

DUTY OF TODAY— THE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

The unfortunate dead of our 800,000 who went out to 
battle against 2,828,000, if we could imagine them, com- 
ing in spirit to the 20,000,000 whites of the South and 
asking the question, "What have you done to settle the 
many problems within the limits of the boundary be- 
tween centralization and States rights, between slavery 
and the race question, between individualism and col- 
lectiveism, between the spirit of the Cavaliers and the 
Puritan within our gates — could we answer duty as they 
have answered it?" Could we point then to an awaken- 
ing commerce that has not over-reached individual effort? 
Could we show busy cities that have not neglected 
stately country mansion, the cottage home-life and the 
growing fields? Could we point to a diversified product 
that will defy a periodic scourge? Have we remember- 
ed "that no people could be prosperous or happy, if the 
soil be neglected : and as a normal country life made our 
fathers, so the lack of it might unmake us." Can we 
reply that for all men we have fought as we should 
"against ignorance" and, "beat back the rising tide of 
illiteracy?" Have we kept our pilitics pure? Could we 
show them that with us the bribe-giver is as reprehen- 
sible as the bribe-taker ; and that the bribe may be given 
by influence of a vote or an office as well as in property, 
currency or gold. Of our future's greatness, do you know 
what sooth-saying I would consult? I would inquire if 
we have learned that patriotism is doing our duty to our 
country; if the strong have tried to lift up the weak, 
lest its fall drag down the strong; if the rich have dealt 
generously with the poor and become rich indeed; if the 
fortunate have shown a full measure of gratitude in 
dealing in a kindly spirit with the unfortunate; if the 
wise with true wisdom, have dealt justly with the ignor- 
ant in its feeble gropings for instruction. What in- 
personal spirit has guided our generation? What un- 



(12) 

selfish service has glorified our country? Such are the 
human cries to be ansewred — such are the tests of im- 
mortality! If we have not heeded these angel voices, we 
have missed the call of the race to a higher life. God of 
the nations answer for us! — "Lest we forget! lest we 
forget !" 

SOUTHERN IDEALS. 

If I may answer, somewhat, I would say, my country- 
men, that the hallowed voices of Lee and Davis, and the 
graves of Southern sons killed in our civil war speak not 
in vain of duty. 

If there is a delusion of wealth in the United States 
that is trying the manhood of a nation, the South still 
knows that honor is above price. If with vast property 
rights come power and responsibility she knows that 
character and individual effort must not be ignored. If 
the corporation has vested rights that are conflicting 
with individual effort she knows that when properly reg- 
ulated the corporation, is a valuable aid to the efforts of 
the individual. We recognize that corporate rights 
must be as secure as the individual's and individual 
rights must be as secure as corporation's, that the 
domain of corporate activity shall be business and the 
right of the individual in political life is to be supreme. 

If there are base political methods, vexing the nations, 
we know that the South is putting into such questions her 
best thought and honesty of purpose to make the source 
of politics pure, to have a right administration of the af- 
fairs of State, and to keep her municipal life from the 
scandals that come daily from municipal life in other sec- 
tions. 

If there is a menace of privilege taking hold in the na- 
tion, putting commerce above manhood, the South, we 
believe, has tried to be true to her ideals and the re- 
sponsibility of and to the individual. 



(13) 

If the home is being attacked in America, as I have on 
several occasions shown, it is in the tendencies of the peo- 
ple to drift from the farm to cities, from separate dwell- 
ings to boarding houses and tenements; in the extrava- 
gant tastes and luxurious manner of the people, and the 
adoption of fads and slavish adherence to style; in the 
increasing summer and winter resorts ideal, making home 
transitory; in the restless running here and there by 
easy transportations ; in the expenditure for tobacco and 
strong drink of $1,993,000,000 and only $257,000,000 for 
home and foreign church work; in a jewelry, millinery, 
confectionery and chewing-gum bill of $969,000,000 and 
the sum of $336,216,000 for education; in the invasion 
of the homes by modern industry; the diminishing birth 
rate, and the story that is told in the marriage each year 
of only three per cent, of the unmarried population fif- 
teen years of age and over; in a rate of divorce increase 
in each five year period of about thirty per cent., and in 
the last decade more than three times the increase of 
population. We believe that such conditions have taken 
as slight root with us as in other sections of the na- 
tion. The ideal American home will be found not far 
from the firesides, and in the true contented wives, the 
honest and ambitious sons, the virtuous and indus- 
trious daughters of the middle classes of the South. 

I regret to say that since the war we have had little 
part in the administrations of the affairs of the nation. 
In the future we intend to have a larger share in making 
things go right in America, and are beginning at home 
by trying to settle aright our own peculiar problems. We 
will ask our recognition as individuals of honest pur- 
pose, and as a section whose millions of produce give 
this nation its balance of trade against the world. We 
will dertmnd our recognition by seeing in evils to he cor- 
rected ovportiinity for manhood; bj/ seeing in undevel- 
oped resources oppoi'tunity for a high minded commerce 
and a genius for work; Mj seeing in all boys and girls an 



(14) 

opportunity for education and religion. And above all 
by doing- the necessary and "the impossible." For if we 
have been misunderstood in the past we will be under- 
stood in the future by our eiforts for the betterment of 
mankind. If we have been humiliated in the past, we 
will be honored in the future in proportion as we develop 
the resources of the South as an agricultural people, and 
as such, settle her questions of responsibility with exact 
regard to the rights of all men. No period in history, no 
race of men, no section, no provincials have nor can ever 
escape the effects of its answer to the deirmnds of religion 
and for education of its people. 

May I say in closing, if our manhood of the past was 
doubted, every soldier's grave is a silent and pathetic 
witness of bravery. If Confederate sons be questioned, 
witness their going to other sections and taking a place 
in the arts and sciences, commerce and literature. If 
the womanhood of the Nation be too much threatened 
by the invasion of modern industry and other seducing 
ills from wifehood and motherhood, I believe, the na- 
tion's hope for the motherhood of the future will not be 
more secure than in the happy wives and daughters of 
the South. 

The pleasure of this anniversary of our defeat and 
of our victory in finding the life of enlargement, will not 
be full, if I did not leave with you the sentiment that the 
Nation's hope is in the middle class, where, is found the 
gold of character. I will be glad, if, from anything I have 
said, one boy or girl should come to sing with Sta,nton, 

"Back of the gloom — 

The bloom! 
Back of the strife — 
Sweet life, 
And flowering meadows that glow and gleam 
Where the winds sing joy and daisies dream. 



(15) 

And the sunbeams color the quickening clod, 
And faith in the future and trust in God. 
Back of the gloom — 
The bloom!" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 763 815 g 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



00137638150 4 J| 




